


She's Every Song I've Ever Heard

by Maidenjedi



Category: The Stand - Stephen King
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 03:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20632505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: Yvonne, the World Series, Larry - and Randall Flagg.





	She's Every Song I've Ever Heard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/gifts).

> She’s a flighty good time buddy in the corner of the bar  
But she’d fight the Devil for ya just for being who you are  
\- “Every Girl”- Evan Felker and John Fullbright
> 
> (Title from the song)

Yvonne came home, feet aching a bit, but happy. Tips had been good, the day had been just warm enough, and she had someone to come home to. 

Simple things, sure. She was more than fine with simple.

Larry wasn’t actually there when she walked through the door, and that was okay, too. She didn’t mind having a few minutes to clean up, to maybe change her bra for one a little sexier. Why not?

The third game of the World Series would be on later, and she could cheer for the Twins and Larry wouldn’t say a word, because he was happy just to watch, just fine with whatever outcome, because his beloved Yankees weren’t there and he had no dog in the hunt. As long as he’d had a good day, as long as practice had gone well and he wasn’t at odds with Barry or Wayne or any of the others.

Yvonne wouldn’t say so, but part of her did think it would be better if Larry left the band. Maybe. Better for whom? Well, _she_ had no dog in _that_ hunt, not really.

She found the bra she knew he liked best and swapped for it, then made her way to the kitchen. They had plenty of beer still, some of the chips left she knew he liked. What was there for dinner? She opened the refrigerator.

She sneezed. Three, four times. Huge, body-shattering sneezes.

It was no big deal, fall allergies or whatever. She seemed to catch every cold out there, though. A little concerned, all of a sudden, she felt her glands, her forehead. Both fine.

She considered an antihistamine, but promptly forgot about it when she didn’t sneeze again and the more pressing issue of what to make for dinner came back to her. 

-

The best fucking time of the year, as far as Larry was concerned, was the World Series. And he was really enjoying this one. He told her so, and she could tell – if there had been even one niggling problem from the day, it was gone when he could sit down, beer in one hand and Yvonne in the other. 

She did like the way he handled her, that was certain.

But she had to get up. Sixth inning, Twins leading. She had to sneeze.

“You alright, babe?” he called from the living room.

“Alright!” she yelled back, and there was no more back-and-forth. She cleaned up – there was nothing to clean up, just make-up to correct a bit, clothes to straighten. A diaphragm to consider; it was the sixth inning, and Larry’d already sported an impressive hard-on for the better part of the last two innings. There would be foreplay, but not much. She grabbed the diaphragm.

And the evening went on.

-

Years later, on a desert road, his calves burning from a day of walking but his mind as clear as it ever would be, he’d remember that one night in particular. 

-

The game ended and love followed, and restlessness set in. Yvonne had been on a day shift for the last two weeks, but she was a night owl. The band didn’t do a lot of weekday gigs, but Larry, too, came alive after dark.

They had met in the wee hours, after all.

So they went steppin’, as Larry liked to call it, to kill some time, get a little drunk and maybe a little high if they could find it. They didn’t need it – both were riding the high of feeling content, settled, comfortable. Adjectives neither was intimately familiar with and so all the more valuable in the repetition.

They ended up at a mellow jazz club, the sort of place that glowed blue within, a trick of the light hitting the smoke a certain way. Larry liked to proclaim a love for jazz, and Yvonne was happy enough to go along. This was the sort of place you could still hear yourself think, and besides, they had great cocktails.

Larry ordered for them both and Yvonne was, for a moment, very glad for the smoke to hide the grimace on her face when he did it. She was no libber, as her mother might have said, but it sat wrong, his highhandedness. She opted to swallow whatever displeasure rose up, in light of the fact that his hand was currently making its way up her thigh and making her very happy, indeed.

She got up a few moments later, as the band took a break and the joint jumped a little. “Ladies,” she said to Larry, and he nodded, grinning, already waving down the waiter for a fresh round.

-

It was a good night, she thought as she reapplied lipstick, stuffed her panties in her handbag. She was going to go back out there to Larry and convince him it was time to go home – or at least time to find some place more private.

The band was warming up to start again, and the trombone player caught Yvonne’s eye and winked. She returned it with a laugh and made her way across the room.

Larry was talking to someone at the table. Yvonne might have thought it was a woman, through the blue haze – the person had long hair, very neat and very fine – but for the build, wide shoulders and a tapering back. Nice ass, too. Guy was standing next to the table, and nearing it, Yvonne saw Larry’s face was shiny, almost clammy.

“What’s up?” she said, sliding into the seat, just edging past the stranger. She was watching Larry, and didn’t see the stranger frown, put off by the interruption.

“Yvonne!” said Larry, his voice pitched a little high and funny, but relieved, too. “This is…this….”

“Oh, they call me Randy,” said the stranger, and Yvonne’s gaze was drawn in his direction.

He was smooth faced, no blemish or unruly beard. And she was right about the hair – even from the front, it was smooth and classy. But his eyes had a dead, flat look to them. Yvonne felt uneasy and couldn’t have said why, or even admit to the feeling, really.

But she sneezed. Three times, loudly.

The stranger chuckled. 

Larry pressed a napkin in her hand. “Randy here saw the band the other night. Recognized me. He works for….”

“I think Larry here could be going places,” interrupted the stranger, voice cheerful. “He’s a real talent. I like his voice. My boss, that is, my colleagues ought to hear him. Maybe you could come in for a session or two, let them hear what you can do.”

Larry’s grin widened, seeming strained, but genuine.

Yvonne’s head swam. She was feeling a little weak and sneezed again.

“You feelin’ alright, sweetheart?”

The stranger reached for her hand and she yanked it away.

“Just fine,” she replied.

He stood there, making more small talk. _How about those Twins, eh? Oh, you were watching, too? I thought I was the only baseball fan in this good for nothing town, everyone here is already watching football. You guys like baseball, you oughta go out to…._

By the time his chatter had slowed, Yvonne was certain she had a fever. She reached for her throat, to feel her glands.

“You might wanna get it checked out, see a doc. And watch the weather. Don’t want to catch your death,” said the stranger, his voice taking on a note uncomfortably similar to a busy-body old biddie who only really cared whether you were passing on the plague, not if you had it in the first place.

Yvonne felt her hackles rise. She’d always hated busybodies. It was that which prompted her to speak, though she had serious doubts about this guy’s “colleagues.” 

“Who’d you say you were, again? Couldn’t quite catch your name,” she said in response. She waved her hand in the direction of the stage, blaming the noise in the joint.

The stranger’s grin broadened, hardened. “Randy. Flatt. Randy Flatt.”

Damn if he hadn’t hesitated, too.

Larry was watching Yvonne, squinting, trying to follow what she was doing. 

“Oh, right. Randy. Where’d you hear the band, did you say?”

The grin faltered a bit. He definitely hesitated this time.

“Here and there. Joints all run together, you go often enough.”

Yeah, because the Tattered Remnants played such a variety of _joints_.

“I just wondered. We get a lot of fans coming up, all the time, saying they know this producer or that record exec. Songwriters, some of ‘em, shoving material in Larry’s face. He writes his own stuff, you know.” The defiant tone overrode the distinct tickle in Yvonne’s throat. And Larry blanched, now looking to the stranger, seeming almost worried about what the reaction was going to be.

“I see,” said the stranger. Yvonne hardly believed Randy Flatt to be his name. “I’m sorry if I came across like those people, then. I just really dig your man, you know? He’s got this…righteous sort of sound when he sings. I know you know what I mean.”

He said this last in a low tone, leaning in, excluding Larry. He had Yvonne’s complete attention.

“But then, maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t have any faith in him.”

Yvonne had no idea how this had progressed this far, why she was goading a fan of all things, whether he was a fan, why any of this mattered.

But it did.

“Oh, I have faith,” she said. “What I don’t have is any desire to see him hurt.”

The world fell away. It was Yvonne and this dude, this absolute schmuck, and they were facing off. Something huge was at stake, wasn’t it? Something important. More than Larry’s career and the Tattered Remnants’ success. It was heady, staring at the stranger, who wouldn’t quite meet her eye, who was sweating on the edges, but who exuded a kind of confidence anyway. 

_You can’t protect him. _

_I can, for now._

Yvonne reached out for Larry’s hand, and was almost surprised when she found it. 

The music seeped back in, and Larry was talking, telling a story about the Remnants and the stranger was laughing, he didn’t notice Yvonne at all. They laughed, and Yvonne frowned, not hearing what was said, feeling once again as though her head was spinning, feeling a sneeze coming on.

_I’ll win, you know. That’s fate._

She shook her head. To clear it, to deny the claim. Did it matter?

“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

He turned to her. “Randy Flatt. Look me up, I’m in the book.”

With that, he seemed to have had his fill of talking to them. He stood up and stretched a little. He had the look of a lazy cowboy, lanky and too clean, too neat. His jeans were creased.

“You two have a good one. And ma’am, I hope you feel better.” He winked – a chill went down Yvonne’s spine – and walked away.

-

They stayed for the rest of the set. With every song, they felt better, and neither Yvonne nor Larry could say as they were walking home that they’d honestly ever felt bad. Larry was going on about his first encounter with a fan, and Yvonne was wondering whether she could get her own hair that smooth. She didn’t sneeze again, or so much as scratch her throat. She found the crumpled, soiled napkin in her purse the next morning and couldn’t recall how it got there.

Larry was more than thrilled to discover she wasn’t wearing her panties any longer. They made it inside – barely.

And the rest of the World Series went just as well, if not better, and they both forgot the stranger and every creepy feeling that he’d brought with him.

-

Until a day, almost three years later, in Las Vegas.

-

Larry’s eyes scanned the crowd that had gathered to watch the show. He didn’t know what he was looking for. 

Except he did. He had a feeling, nothing more, no reason at all for it, but he couldn’t shake the idea that Yvonne was there, watching.

_Dying_, he thought.

The last good time, he’d thought when summer had begun. It was a universally acknowledged truth that the World Series was the best time for Americans, collectively – in Larry’s experience, at any rate – but the ’87 Series, with Yvonne, that really had been the best for ol’ Larry.

Old Larry, of course, was quite gone by this time, and he didn’t really want to see Yvonne in the crowd. He wanted her to be safe elsewhere, or else gone altogether, safe from what was about to come.

He _did_.

And he didn’t see her, as the mock trial began and the crowd moved restlessly. His attention was on Flagg, whose face, now revealed, was familiar to him. He’d come across this man before.

Out in the crowd, toward the back, clutching a little boy whose mother had left him alone in this world, was a woman Larry would recognize. Had he seen her, had their eyes met, she might have been seized with memories, the Twins winning the World Series, and a night at a jazz club, blue smoke and a man who claimed to be a “big fan, huge!” of Larry Underwood and the Tattered Remnants.

She’d forgotten – been made to forget, really. But she was, at that moment, finally convinced she’d made the wrong choice, only going as far as Vegas.

-

She told the stranger, that’s nice, but we’re on a date, kinda want our privacy.

She told the stranger, no, he’s not Larry Underwood, you’re mistaken. Good night then.

She took off her shoe and jammed the heel into the stranger’s eye. _I know who you are!_

She took Larry’s hand and they ran out of the club, never looking back, getting in a car and going, going, going….

-

Oblivion erased the might-have-beens, the what-ifs, the coulda-shoulda-wouldas. 

Oblivion brought peace.

-

“Yvonne, honey, could ya grab me another while you’re in there?”

And she did.


End file.
